When I was in high school -- so, many years ago (how many is left as an exercise for the reader) -- my English teacher, Ms. Reinhardt, gave us a set of puzzles, familiar sayings in unfamiliar guise. Amazingly enough, I kept my copy all these years, and just ran across it this evening while searching for something else.
I don't know what their origin is (I don't think she made them up), but wherever they're from, they're fun brain-teasers. How many of them can you figure out?
1. A lithoid form, whose onward course
Is shaped by gravitational force
Can scarce enjoy the consolation
Of bryophytic aggregation.
2. To carry haulm of cereal growth
The tylopod is nothing loath;
But just one haulm too many means
That dorsal fracture supervenes.
3. When, nimbus-free, Sol marches byAcross the circumambient sky,To graminiferous meads repair --Your instant task awaits you there!
4. There is no use in exhortation
To practice equine flagellation,
If vital forces did depart
And still the breath, and cease the heart.
5. That unit of the avian tribeWhose movements one can circumscribeIn manu, as a pair will rateSubarborially situate.6. For none who claims to representThe Homo species sapient,Will loiter Einstein's fourth dimensionOr sea's quotidian declension.7. Faced with material esculentAs source of liquid nourishmentAvoid excess; 'twill but displeaseOf culinary expertise.8. Conducting to the watering placeA quadruped of equine raceIs simple; but he may not careTo practice imbibition there.9. The coroner observed: "Perpend,The death of this, our feline friend,Reflects preoccupation shownWith business other than his own."10. If little value his compunctionsWho arrogates clavigerous functionsWhen once from circumambient pen,Is snatched its equine denizen.
Have fun!